BWW Reviews: EXILES Is a Muddled Immigration Story at Artists Rep

I'm going to sound like an old curmudgeon saying this, but television has done a lot to ruin the art of playwrighting. There are other factors to blame as well - technical improvements in stagecraft and the rising cost of running a theater - but more and more I see plays that are composed of a lot of short, choppy scenes that are cut off before they have a chance to make an impact. Last night I attended an August Wilson play that gloried in the use of good old-fashioned language, with long scenes that had a chance to develop, grow, and change moods under the director's hand. The late Mr. Wilson wrote long plays, for sure, but his skill for developing character and story makes those plays wortthwhile at any length.

Exiles by Carlos Lacamara has an enticing subject; the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Fidel Castro suddenly announced that he would allow Cubans to leave as long as they had a boat waiting for them at Mariel Harbor, and thousands made the attempt to cross to Florida in rough waters, using inadequate boats with a shortage of supplies on board. Castro used the opportunity to empty Cuba's prisons and mental health facilities, hoping to rid Cuba of its "undesirable" population.

Here we have Ronaldo, who's been in the U.S. for many years and is now running boat trips back and forth from Cuba to Miami, hoping to rescue his elderly mother, who he hasn't seen in many years. Ronaldo and his son, Roli, are instead saddled with Ronaldo's hated brother-in-law, Joaquin, and Joaquin's niece, Saadia, along with an ex-convict named Pepito and another man known only as The Lunatic. Soon after they leave Cuba, the engine floods and the boat is adrift.

They meander through the Caribbean not knowing where they are, trying to ration their supplies in order to survive, and here the specificity of the Cuban immigrant experience is discarded in favor of a Survivor-style fight among the passengers to see who will control the boat's destiny. Ronaldo tries to keep control, but he is bested by Pepito, who is himself overtaken by The Lunatic. The past history between Ronaldo and Joaquin comes up for discussion, but we never really learn why Ronaldo hates the other man so much. We see a gun being hidden at the beginning of the play and wonder when it will be used, and by whom. And on, and on, until the end of the ninety-minute play.

I'm not sure what drew the distinguished director Damaso Rodriguez to this play, but he's done his best to make something special out of it. The set design by Megan Wilkerson is spectacular - the boat seems lifesize and takes up most of the stage space, It moves as the story moves, turning this direction and that (with the actors occasionally getting out in the dark to push), with projections and very effective sound design (by Rodolfo Ortega, who also composed the musical score) helping set the various scenes. The boat moved often, as the scenes are so short that there wasn't much to do except watch it seem to move through the water.

The cast did what they could to make the play interesting. Andres Alcala, as Ronaldo, starts out cranky and irascible, then gradually lets us see his heart. Jason Glick's Joaquin is quietly effective, making the soft-spoken professor increasingly desperate and unbalanced. Rafael Miguel, as Roli, and Sekai Edwards, as Saadia, do what they can with roles that are mostly there for plot functions (and I felt for Edwards, who is asked to disrobe at one point for no earthly reason). John San Nicolas gets stuck with the most cliched role, the ex-convict Pepito, who goes power mad and nearly causes everyone's doom; his scenes late in the play are the hardest to watch, because we've seen them in a thousand action movies, and no one involved in this production is able to do anything with them except turn the boat in a new direction.

Bobby Bermea gets the juicy role of The Lunatic, and he's up to the challenge. He gets a series of poetic speeches, which he's doing with his hands literally tied behind his back, and he lashes out at imaginary friends and foes. The character never adds up to anything, really, but he's so entertaining, and so separate from the plot-driven rut the others are stuck in, that you can't stop watching him, even when he's asleep.

I am absolutely certain that there's a fine drama in the Mariel boatlift. Perhaps another one has been written sometime in the past thirty-four years, and I didn't catch it. But Exiles, despite all the talent Artists Rep has lavished on it, doesn't do the subject justice. And that's the saddest ending of all.

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